Last night at the Walter Reade theater in New York, Christopher Nolan and Film Comment contributing editor Scott Foundas sat down for an hour plus chat about the 'Dark Knight' trilogy, Nolan's career and the traditionalist's love of cinema, the virtues of IMAX cameras and shooting on 65mm, and the importance of keeping the photochemical process alive in a digital age.

Last night at the Walter Reade theater in New York, Christopher Nolan and Film Comment contributing editor Scott Foundas sat down for an hour plus chat about the 'Dark Knight' trilogy, Nolan's career and the traditionalist's love of cinema, the virtues of IMAX cameras and shooting on 65mm, and the importance of keeping the photochemical process alive in a digital age.

The fascinating conversation was also peppered with key footage from all three Batman films, though projected digitally much to Foundas’ (and surely Nolan’s) dismay. Much of what they discussed had covered similar ground to the just-posted interview Foundas and Nolan had in Film Comment this month (which disappointed a few hardcore fans) but as always, there were some notable moments. Here are six highlights from "Film Society of Lincoln Center - An Evening with Christopher Nolan."

1. Heath Ledger met with Christopher Nolan about the part of Batman and Bruce Wayne.
Before you get too excited, Nolan said, as is routine, he met with many young actors for the part. And while Ledger took the meeting, he immediately said he wasn't interested. “He was quite gracious about it, but he said, 'I would never take a part in a superhero film.' " Nolan said. The filmmaker said he thinks Ledger changed his mind eventually because, “I explained to him what I wanted to do with 'Batman Begins' and I think maybe he felt I achieved it.”

2. Ledger signed onto the part of The Joker months before there was an actual screenplay.
Having been won over by “Batman Begins,” Ledger was more than game to play the Joker and actually sought the part from the director. The filmmaker wasn’t sure who he wanted to play the part yet, but he said the actor quickly convinced him. Nolan explained that Ledger didn’t like to work much and waited until “he was hungry.” And so when the Joker role came around, “he was certainly hungry then.”

"It was a very scary moment, because by this time he was so committed and knew what kind of high wire act it was going to be and if he didn't like the script it would have been extremely uncomfortable."

The filmmaker said the actor germinated on the role for months to slowly find his way into the role. "Heath spent months and months [preparing],we cast him even before the script was written so he had a very long time to obsess about it, think about what he was going to do, to really figure it out.”

During this period, Nolan sent "touchstones" to prepare for the role like the novel "AClockwork Orange" and books on the paintings of Francis Bacon -- "a lot of tangential things that fed into the character," he said.

3. When Nolan finally got the final script to Ledger, he hesitated and became nervous. What if this actor, already immersed in the role, didn't like the screenplay?
Obviously Nolan had explained the idea of the Joker, that he was going to be an anarchist with a lack of ideology that would challenge the very being and fabric of the methods and philosophy of Batman. But all the time he prepared, the script was still being written. The final hand-off to the actor was like a leap of faith.

"It was a very scary moment, because by this time he was so committed and knew what kind of high wire act it was going to be and if he didn't like [the screenplay], it would have been extremely uncomfortable. But he [liked it]. He sighed with relief, I sighed with relief," Nolan said.

4. While the Joker character is iconic now, they weren’t always so sure about it at the time.
The Joker voice slowly developed over time and during camera tests until it finally emerged. "In that way he kind of sneaked up on it," Nolan said, explaining it didn't just become the voice all of a sudden. Both of them however, were a little nervous about it. "There were moments when you go, 'Oh, that's exactly right' and there are moments when you go, 'I hope this is good because I have no idea.' It was so unpredictable.”

“The voice was certainly scary because it would shift in pitch," Nolan attested. “You never quite know which way the pitch is going to go with the voice. Just as the physical movements were [unpredictable], you didn't know what he was going to do with his hands, the way he moved, it was always a surprise. The actual tone of his voice was a surprise too. Sometimes threatening and sometimes more sing-song and light."

The first sequence they shot was the IMAX prologue. Nolan said he put that scene up front because in a way, it was low stakes, Ledger wore a mask for most of it and there was little dialogue. But the character was there regardless with the slinky physicality that was out of a Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton film. The opening reveal of the Joker, when he took off the clown mask, was problematic. Because they were still getting used to the IMAX cameras, the shot of his face was slightly out of focus so Nolan called for a reshoot. But Ledger immediately called him, worried that he had gone too big and wild. "It was tremendous, but when we looked at dailies it was slightly out of focus," he said. "So I just rescheduled, and I got this horrified phone call from Heath saying, 'What have I done?' It was the first time he had ever kind of shown us the voice and character [for real] and we wanted to reshoot it!" He laughed. "[But I said], ‘No, no no, it's great,' but he never quite believed me."

Nolan said Ledger graciously reshot the scene, but ultimately they went with the original, slightly out of focus take in the final film because it was just one of a kind. "It was just magic,” he said. “It was that thing. And I think part of him knew he couldn't reproduce it because it was so of the moment."

Nolan said the first major scene they shot was the interrogation sequence between the Joker and Batman because Ledger had been playing with variations of the voice and character and the filmmaker wanted him to “commit” to a version of the Joker. Nolan also said that scene was shot in England with a “gruff” British crew who were used to Jack Nicholson as the Joker “didn’t really know what [Ledger] was doing.” But he soon won them over. “After a couple of days they said, ‘He’s the business,’ as they say. They could just tell.”